What triggered Dr. Peter Gleick to commit identity fraud on January 27th?

I am following this story about Gleick vs. Heartland Institute. I believe I found something that might be useful and/or interesting.

To understand what happened in the mind of Gleick you need to carefully read the exchange occurred on Forbes between Gleick and Taylor in January. Apparently, everything started from this post by Gleick

First, you need to note the dates of Taylor reply (2012/01/12) and the date of the email sent by Gleick to Heartland which started a couple of weeks later on 2012/01/27. So the dates match.

Now you need to take into account that the article by Taylor is quite strong and solid, and very likely severely damaged the scientific credibility of Gleick who was proven not even having the scientific facts right and having his analysis of the scientific literature, in a particular of that that opposes the AGW theory, extremely superficial and unfair.

I would say that Taylor won the debate without doubts, and Gleick simply matured the idea of having a strong revenge.

Now you need to carefully read the comment by Gleick to Taylor’s article that you can read at the bottom on the Forbes’ article page. Gleick wrote

“I don’t normally respond to the posts by James Taylor — reading them makes my head explode. They are written as though from a completely different universe — some parallel universe where up is down, left is right, and global warming isn’t happening…. whew (though a careful reader of this post by Taylor will note that he accidentally acknowledges global warming is occurring). But since I’m the entire target of this rant, I thought I might offer a minor comment or two: He says I’m upset because so few people agree with me… Hmm, 97-98% of all climate scientists (of which I am one, and James Taylor is not) agree with me — climate change is happening, and it is happening because of human activities. Maybe no one at the Heartland Institute agrees (though they are paid not to), but I like the company I keep better. I will ignore the completely scientific nonsense that comprises the rest of his post, except to note the fine response by “cyruspinkerton” who sets Taylor straight about extreme events in 2011. Taylor must not read the news, or the science, either. I wonder, however, if Taylor would publish the list of who really DOES fund the Heartland Institute. It seems to be a secret — no information is listed on their website about actual contributors of that $7 million budget that they use to deny the reality of climate change (and previously, the health effects of tobacco — their other focus). And their 990 tax form doesn’t say either. [By the way, while my Forbes posts reflect my personal opinion and not the opinion of the Pacific Institute, all of the Pacific Institute’s financial records are public.] So, Mr. Taylor: let’s have the complete list of your funders.”

As you can see, instead of discussing the scientific facts that Taylor was addressing in his article strongly disproving Gleick, Gleick just wanted the names of the donors of Heartland Institute more than anything else, as if that was the most important issue.

Now you need to read the response from Taylor. At the end Taylor responded

“Finally, Gleick asks for the Heartland Institute to publicly reveal all the names of its donors. The Heartland Institute used to do so, while similarly appealing to other groups to do the same. However, environmental activists and other extremist groups used the information to launch a campaign of personal harassment against Heartland Institute donors while simultaneously refusing to release the names of their own donors. It is funny how Gleick rants against the alleged harassment of Katharine Hayhoe yet remains silent about the harassment of people who disagree with him. This further reveals Gleick’s appalling lack of objectivity, as does Gleick’s call for the Heartland Institute to release the names of its donors while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of global warming activist groups have been far less transparent than the Heartland Institute. Of course, Gleick’s attempts to make Heartland Institute funding an issue while ignoring the less transparent funding reports of global warming activist groups with 10, 20, or even 80 times the funding of the Heartland Institute is a tired and sad tactic used by global warming alarmists who try desperately to take attention away from scientific facts and objective scientific data. I can see why Gleick views these scientific facts and objective data as a “parallel universe” that makes his “head spin.”

Now you need to focus on the key sentence in Taylor’s response:

“However, environmental activists and other extremist groups used the information to launch a campaign of personal harassment against Heartland Institute donors”

At this point, Gleick knew what he could do to have his personal revenge against Taylor and the Heartland Institute . He simply needed to get the list of names of the donors of Heartland Institute and make it public in such a way that environmental activists and other extremist groups could use the information to launch a campaign of personal harassment against those persons and damage the finance of the Heartland Institute. And in two weeks Gleick prepared his “smart” plan that we know.

In my opinion Gleick was simply blinded by a strong feeling of personal hatred against Taylor and just wanted his personal revenge against the person that so efficiently rebutted him in public. The irony of this story is that it was Taylor himself to suggest Gleick what he could do to have his revenge and to efficiently damage the Heartland Institute. ButGleick’s plan was uncovered…

In conclusion, the real reason why people like Gleick do not want to publicly debate with the AGW and IPCC critics is simply because somehow they know that they will lose the debate. And they get mad of it.

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Addendum by Anthony

I would add that there is one other exacerbating factor that occurred on January 27th, 2012, and that is seen in this article on Forbes by Dr. Peter Gleick:

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.”

Then there’s this, Gleick was one of the signers:

But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down.

My theory on the faked memo goes something like this: When Gleick received the documents from Heartland, there was no smoking gun.

What he needed was proof of what he and the other CAGW alarmists have been saying repeatedly. That oil companies are funding the anti-CAGW movement. Turns out, Heartland does NOT get any funding from oil companies for anti-CAGW work. Yes, they get money from Koch, but that was for Healthcare, and a pittance at $25K.

So the faked memo was required in order to clearly draw the line for journalists, who are no longer expected to delve very deeply into sources or documents – nope, they just repeat verbatim what they are told.

The only purpose of the faked document was to help journalists draw conclusions from what the real documents said, but because there was nothing there, the faked document is mostly made up.

Again, the Koch connection to anti-global warming had to be one of the top take aways. This is after all what Gleick and so many others keep saying. That fossil fuel interests fund deniers. Too bad it’s not true.

whatever motivated his criminal activity – it does seem clear from the above that anger drove him to take a chance in an environment where anyone not a penny short of a shilling would realise the chances of getting caught were very high indeed.

So that is what is surprising to me.

What is NOT surprising is the fact that he considerred the act itself. Because manipulating data is what the Team does. But usually in a safe “area”.

The only mistake Gleick made was thinking he was above the law of the land.

Let’s face it Climatescientists have been above the normal laws of science for some time now

Anthony, isn’t there a thread to be followed in asking, “What Board members name did Gleick use?” “How did Gleick get that name?” That name needn’t be published here, but it’s part of the puzzle that completes this effort by Nicola & others.

And, Anthony, what can you tell us of the steel & resolve of The Heartland Institute to go into full battle mode here. I’m frightened we’ll get a “McCain/Romney/’Let’s all be civil, moderate Republican'” response strategy.

Please, all commenters: Make your contributions to the Heartland legal fund!

Well: “Getting mad by loosing dabates”…”planning revanche” …”letting steam/anger off”….
and, at the same time, sneaking into School Education Institutions claiming highest
moral standards……now he submarined for the coming months…..
The cause for his actions are not the Taylor TRIGGER EVENTS…..the cause is simply he is a
sneaky, sleezy obstinate trying to outsmart the HI-institute…..fully in the center of the
CAGW movement…..and still being laudated by Horgan: “Hero…” with “clearly MORAL lies…”
JS

When one sits back and considers the overall scope of the Government led climate propaganda effort, the size of the conspiracy is very disturbing. It appears the is no choice but to shut down NASA, NOAA, EPA, the DOE and start over (sure I missed a few). Their so called out reach efforts and funding of their lackeys is an insult to the American people. The US scientific community needs to be taken to the wood shed for allowing this to happen. As for the non-profits, throw their ass in jail.

Gleick and his CAGW allies keep repeating the absurd statement that “…climate change is happening, and it is happening because of human activities.” Would climate change not be happening without human activities? Talk about anti-science!

see the article yesterday http://climateaudit.org/2012/02/22/gleick-and-the-ncse/
Jan 13th “Dr. Peter Gleick, president and co-founder of The Pacific Institute, has joined NCSE’s board of directors. Gleick, a world-renowned water expert, will advise NCSE on its new climate change education initiative.”
NCSE explain this on their webpage neutrally entitled “NCSE Tackles Climate Change Denial”

Good analysis. That does now seem plausible to me. Gleick personality traits lead him to be hypersensitive to public criticism. Having been radicalized by the CAGW movement, he now holds extremists views on CAGW. He believes that Skeptics are standing in the way of saving mankind from mass extinction and believes skeptics are funded by the forces of evil; therefore he feels ethically justified in using mendacious and mean-spirited tactics. He feels publicly humiliated by the battle with HI in Forbes. And finally, he believes that HI’s invitation to debate was in bad faith and simply intended to further humiliate him (by calling his appearance “entertainment”).

All of this sends him off in a vindictive rage. I think that’s also a good defense that might keep him from doing jail time.

@Nerd … “Hope he seeks some help because there is truly something wrong with him.”

Unfortunately there’s no way he could get counseling that would ‘deprogram’ him from his particular religious cult. 100% of credentialed psychologists and psychiatrists would consider him to be a hero and paragon of sanity, because their minds are rigidly locked within the same paradigm.

There may be some uncredentialed counselors in Evangelical or Muslim circles who could see the problem and pull him toward reality, but there’s no way Gleick would ever contact them. He “prefers the company” of fellow credentialed apocalyptic nutters.

Gleick: “… climate scientists (of which I am one, and James Taylor is not) ”

That’s odd, ever since he’s been disgraced he’s been a “water scientist”.
Wouldn’t do to refer to a disgraced climatologist would it?

I think he’s quite right about the parallel universe where up is down, left is right, bit though. He could probably add : where good is bad and right is wrong.

It’s probably some fancy Einsteinian relativity thing. Different frames of reference and all that. It seems Peter does not know which side of the looking glass he’s on.

It’s a well know corollary of special relativity that when you’ve got your head up your own arse the world seems upside down and the clocks go backwards.

In the UK there is some jurisprudence (tagging Kingsnorth power station’s chimney stack) that excuses criminal activity if you hold your environment beliefs like a religion. Though I doubt US courts would be that amenable.

My theory, until now, was that this was a Dan Rather episode. That is, that Heartland had caught on to Gleick phishing and fed him the fake memo to blow the whole thing up.

That was based on the assumption that Gleick could not have been stupid enough to do this himself. Now I’m not so sure that he wasn’t that stupid, if that is the right word. Looks like he may have just become temporarily superstupid due to his emotional attachment and dedication to the cause. In other words, a zealot who finally ‘lost it.’

Another excellent coverage of global warming alarmism by Anthony Watts. Kudos to you.

The Gleick affair is simply another reason and proof of why ideology has no place in climate science, or Science in general. The facts of the matter are that the Earth can never become a greenhouse, according to the laws of physics and thermodynamics. That means never.

Still, those who continue to push AGW ideology worldwide do not forecast climate and weather in the real world. They ignore the astronomical facts of the matter and treat the Sun as if it has no place regulating the Earth’s climate. It is the Sun that is the cause of all ‘climate change’ on Earth, which I remind AGW alarmists, is always changing. The Earth has a highly variable climate, which means that our climate and weather changes rapidly. It has always been this way since the origin of the Earth.

For many years I have stated that it is the Sun that is the cause of global warming and global cooling because it is a fact. Yet, we have witnessed over the past two decades especially; cliques of careerist ideologues ruin climate science with the fallacy of anthropogenic global warming. These careerists cannot and do not forecast the weather; much less the climate; yet they continue to waste many millions trying to force the AGW square through a round hole.

By his own admission, Gleick chooses to ignore every one of the scientific points raised by Taylor in his article: “I will ignore the completely scientific nonsense that comprises the rest of his post,” This alone highlights the magnitude of his hubris. He must actually believe that the reader will nod in agreement when he, Gleick, dismisses – without a single counter argument – the more than 2 pages of detailed scientific citations as “scientific nonsense”.

But this is so completely typical of many of those who carry the torch for the CAGW movement. There is a phobia of getting involved in any arguments on the scientific data. They can only achieve this by launching into ad hominem diatribes, loaded with nothing more than cutting sarcasm and utter disdain for their interlocutors scientific arguments, and, in this case, raising straw men. Gleick himself had become so completely obsessed with the issue of Heartland’s funding, that in his mind, it was no longer a straw man. He would have seen this as a point so substantitive, that he must have believed that the mere uncovering of this information would wipe out the entire worth of the Heartland skeptical arguments.

It is further clear, that this is a material fact, one that aggravates the seriousness of his original crime, since it shows premeditation and malice of forethought. No punishment can be too servere for such perfidy.

I had been meaning to comment here upon this or make a blog post. I believe that it is this specific exchange of pieces and follow up messages that set Gleick off. He displays, in my opinion, some classic behaviour of narcissistic personality disorder, something I have seen in others I have had dealings with in high-profile positions. I simply don’t think that his ego could accept the perceived affront and assault from James Taylor and as a result Gleick formulated his plan as an act of retribution against Taylor and the Heartland institute.
I think it is very pertinent to the evidence and I hope that it’s been discussed at HI with the appropriate investigating authorities.

At a certain point, their anger and frustration, along with the zealot’s certitude of “the cause”s moral superiority, I fear will find its logical extrension in violence. I recall the assassinations of Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by Supervisor Dan White in San Francisco in the late 70’s — over a political disagreement. Another Supervisor, now Senator, Dianne Feinstein, first came to national prominence for her indispensible leadership during that dark period. The political stakes are larger here by an order of magnitude.

I pray this doesn’t happen. I just am not aware of a pressure release valve in this situation.

If there isn’t an AA group called ‘Alarmists Anonymous,’ maybe there should be. But perhaps alarmism and hate toward contrary views is just a workday affliction, with evenings and weekends in merriment with awards and money aplenty. I asked Joe Romm this in a serious email, and he responded that I was a ‘sociopath’ ….

There are a lot of issues lurking behind bad, impulsive, self-destructive behavior such as this.

Could this be as simple as his thinking that the Court will get him that doner list? His lawyer said
“Dr. Gleick looks forward to using discovery to understand more about the veracity of the documents, lay bare the implications of Heartland’s propaganda plans and, in particular, determine once and for all who is truly behind Heartland and why.”
Time for input from readers who practice the Law to comment if this rash method will work.

How differently do his fellow travelers feel? Is Trenberth really that different? You committ yourself to an ideology, you get all the funding, you think you’ve got the whole world corralled, and then the central tenet of your ideology – that it is based entirely on science – fails anyway. I bet the church was mad at Galileo too. After awhile, all you can do is attack the people pointing out your naked emperor costume.

“I don’t normally respond to the posts by James Taylor — reading them makes my head explode. They are written as though from a completely different universe — some parallel universe where up is down, left is right, and global warming isn’t happening…. whew”. Quoted from Gleick above.

“Some parallel universe” indeed – where a fraction of a degree warming world-wide (somewhere between a good thing and a very good thing as far as I can see…) is somehow known to be fully attributable to Mankind (it’s the CO2 wot done it! /sarc); and measured with any certainty at all; and is leading to our doom.

Parallel universe indeed – where a highly educated, seemingly moral and ethical scientist pulls a cheap felonious con off on an innocent group of Americans exercising their right to free speech. Yes, a parallel universe…

All it needs is for this criminal activity to be sanctioned in a court of law in the normal way. That will be like a bucket of cold water to their hot-heads. The “wake-up call” they are so fond of referring to.

I can’t imagine anyone posting here that they have committed wire fraud and deliberately circulated falsified documents to the media to discredit someone, not getting a knock on the door.

Steve from Rockwood says:
February 25, 2012 at 11:17 am
If only his mom had pulled him out of the sand-box and called a time-out. None of this would have happened.
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I was thinking that he didn’t have enough sandbox time !!!

He was VERY upset the WSJ article signed by the 16 was published, but the letter by “his” 255 was not published. The evidence of how upset he was, was he complained at least 6 times in writing:-
– He wrote the 27 Jan article at Forbes
– He wrote 4 tweets complaining about it between 27 Jan and 28 Jan
– He wrote (don’t know when) an article complaining in the February Pacific Institute newsletter.

The letter by 255 which was not published was very strongly linked to Gleik. If you check the copy that was later published in Science, go to the bottom to see the list of signatures.
– All the signatures are in alphabetic order by surname – except his name is first, with an asterisk.
– At the very bottom of the letter the asterisk is explained – any questions about the letter should be directed to P. H. Gleik at the Pacific Institute.

The letter by the 16 which was published, was signed by a number of prominent people.
– One of the people who signed it was Apollo 17 astronaut, and former NM Senator, Harrison Schmitt. Harrison Schmitt was a director of Heartland.

Gleik very definitely knew who Schmitt was – he wrote an article criticizing him in February 2011, that was published in the Huffington Post.

If you to the 27 Jan Forbes article, and go to page 13 of the comments, Peter Gleik writes:

First, the stakes are too high for any geophysicist or climate scientists to even consider doing bad science for money — the stakes to their reputations and to the planet. Alas, this isn’t true for the organizations paid to deny the science.
Second, none of my funding or my Institute’s funding is used to support our conclusions. In fact our guidelines prohibit it.
Finally, all of our funding information is completely transparent and publicly available, which you would know if you had bothered spending 2 minutes on the web before making unfounded insinuations. But try asking the Heartland Institute for a list of THEIR funders. They refuse to provide it.

But try asking the Heartland Institute for a list of THEIR funders. They refuse to provide it. I believe his is a public concern; Heartland is a private concern. There’s a big difference. (Hey, Gleick could have gone the private route to begin with, but probably wouldn’t have had any money. Caught between a rock and a hard place?)

It may have been the exchange with Taylor in the comments of Taylor’s last article that triggered Gleick, but if you read further in the comments in the third comment following Gleick’s “russellc00k” call’s Gleick out:

“So, it’s not up to James Taylor to show us who funds the Heartland Institute, it’s up to Gleick, Gore, Pachari, Oreskes, Mooney, Romm, Gelbspan or any others who want to give it a shot: Stop with the guilt-by-association garbage, SHOW US YOUR SPECIFIC PROOF THAT MONEY WAS GIVEN TO SKEPTIC CLIMATE SCIENTISTS IN EXCHANGE FOR FALSE FABRICATED CLIMATE ASSESSMENTS!”

So Gleick thought, “Well, yes, maybe it is up to me to give it a shot.”

When an indoctrinated cult member is forced by circumstance to face a threat to their pre conceived or programmed beliefs their first reaction is anger and often laced with hatred and rage. The autonomic threat response kicks in as if the subject were in fact under direct physical threat, this often leads to cult victims lashing out in a blind rage with the normal behavioural inhibitors like consideration of the ramifications and consequences of their actions suppressed by the fight or fight reflex.

In other words the overwhelming need to lash out at perceived enemies overrides normal behavioural inhibitors which are systematically broken down in the programming of the cult victim and it is these normal behavioural inhibitors that are so difficult and time consuming to reconstruct by the deprogramming agencies. It is one of the most common sights in the initial stages of deprogramming and perhaps the most distressing to witness.

Now I am not saying that Gleick is a cult victim in the traditional sense but its all to obvious that CAGW believers display and share certain key symptoms with cult members, the refusal to allow self critical examination of core beliefs, the rage when preconceived and deeply held beliefs are challenged, the rage that follows when an external source is thought able to be seen to get the upper hand within a confrontation. It is obvious that CAGW believers feel under siege by sceptics, that their voice is no longer being listened to as it once was, that they are failing to press home a devastating counter attack on their sceptic enemies preferably without having to engage in dialogue with what they consider to be their enemies.

And this brings me to a startling similarity with cult victims that the CAGW believers seem to share, the often fanatical determination not to freely engage with sceptics, to present sceptics as unworthy of direct contact dialogue or present them as deranged or insane, that somehow their sacred knowledge may become polluted or damaged in the process of dialogue with unbelievers. This unwillingness to open up to debate could be an attempt to preserve their beliefs unpolluted by doubts or contradictory revelations, in other words an automatic unconscious self defence reaction by the belief system itself almost as if it were autonomous within the host. What could be termed an infectious meme like belief system displaying the characteristics of a self protecting infectious virus.

As the CAGW fraud is systematically destroyed you will find instances of blind rage and aggression increase as more CAGW believers are forced to confront the inherent weakness and contradictions in their belief system. Mr Gleick is finding out the hard way that there are indeed consequences for actions taken like this, a cold shower of reality may just be the introduction back to the real world and if that is the case maybe some good will come out of it for him in the end.

We will begin to see more comments attempting to rationalize Gleick’s actions as being justified as a way to save mankind and that his actions were noble in his mind due to being radicalized by the CAGW movement. There will be an attempt to throw off personal responsibility due to his ‘religious’ beliefs. The idea that his actions were not really his fault, he was just doing what had to be done. Would this suggest that perhaps the primary authors of the CAGW ‘science (Mann, Jones, Gore, etc.) should be held accountable? They made him do it?

An insignificant little [snip] that punctured his own puffed up sense of importance?

All the (once-)”respected institutions”, “thousands of papers by thousands of scientists” and their “settled science” couldn’t put this grumpy-numpty back together again. Thankfully.

The world has not seen the last of his kind but, let us all hope, we have seen the back of him, his spite and angry rhetoric. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Maybe his brother will write a book about him. I very much doubt it will measure up to the quality of “Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman” or possess the depth of “Chaos: Making a New Science” but it may end up in the comedy section if it gets rejected from the science fiction shelves. Or vice versa.

Anthony and Nicola: there is something else that happened in early January that could have had a very powerful effect on Gleick: Jeff Condon at the AirVent on January 8th wrote this very incendiary post:

This post goes to the heart of who Gleick is and potentially endangers his livelihood. Which is not to suggest Jeff should not have posted it. It’s a very damning post and deservedly so. Tax payers should not be funding the likes of Gleick and his ilk.

Whether Gleick saw it or not is debatable, but it could have been sent to him by any number of people who are interested in these issues.

I would also suggest to all that Gleick may have had several encounters that set him off, and they may have been gathering force over years and not weeks, as many of us have surmised.

“Individuals can make mistakes. Harrison Schmitt made a mistake about Arctic sea ice having recovered in 2009 to 1989 levels (among many other fundamental mistakes) and he refused to correct it when his error was pointed out to him privately. I cannnot speculate on his motivations. But of much greater concern in this episode is the role of the Heartland Institute, which has long tried to piggyback on Schmitt’s reputation and history of public service. Heartland has established itself as a coordinator of climate denial efforts, as a publisher of a discredited pseudo-scientific attack on climate science called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and as organizer of a conference that brings together groups and individuals that work against the science and policy of climate change. Their irresponsible actions in this cherry-picking exercise substantially diminish even further Heartland’s claim to be any kind of honest broker of serious scientific skepticism on the topic of climate change.”

I think that Forbes article by James Taylor was very well written. Next time Taylor writes such an article, he could juice it up with even more links to official data. UAH temperatures, ice and temperature in Antarctica (while Trendberth et.al. is visiting) , Argo bouy’s temperature plots, the JAXA CO2 distribution plots….

Glieck has had it in for the HI for a long time as exemplified in this Feb 9, 2011 post:
“But of much greater concern in this episode is the role of the Heartland Institute, which has long tried to piggyback on Schmitt’s reputation and history of public service. Heartland has established itself as a coordinator of climate denial efforts, as a publisher of a discredited pseudo-scientific attack on climate science called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and as organizer of a conference that brings together groups and individuals that work against the science and policy of climate change. Their irresponsible actions in this cherry-picking exercise substantially diminish even further Heartland’s claim to be any kind of honest broker of serious scientific skepticism on the topic of climate change.”http://blog.sfgate.com/gleick/2011/02/09/misrepresenting-climate-science-cherry-picking-data-for-political-purposes/

Interestingly much of the content of the above blog post surfaces again in a presentation by NCSE’s J. Scott at an event in Glaskow in September 2011 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvZA68DHFi8) it’s 53 min long but worth watching. Glieck is first mentioned by her @ ~ 21:15 as providing examples for her discussion of “cherry picking” data, specifically regarding the observed recent lack of global warming. She then makes the following comments @ ~ 22:30:
“An even more egregious bit of cherry picking was also provided by Peter Gleick, and I thank him for that, he notes that the Heartland Institute which is a, [stutter], anti-global warming, has an anti-global warming position, it’s a non-profit in the U.S., claimed National Snow and Ice Data Center records show conclusively that in April 2009 Arctic sea ice extent had indeed returned to and surpassed 1989 levels.”
An accompanying slide attributing this to Joseph Bast, President, Heartland Institute (January 31, 2011, Santa Fe New Mexican) is presented. Somewhat interestingly, but greatly speculative, in discussing this further Ms Scott gets quite confused (you really need to see it to appreciate what I mean) and begins talking about the month of February (not April). Perhaps subconsciously when talking about the Heartland Institute there was something she knew that was significant about the month of February??? OK bald faced speculation on my part. Later in her presentation (@ ~ 33:00) she again references Mr. Bast and the Heartland Institute regarding her so called “anti-global warming struggle”.

It seems clear to me that both Glieck and NCSE were on the same page vis-a-vis HI. So I still can’t shake the feeling that the significance of the timing of Glieck’s fraud has something to do with Gliecks role with NCSE and the January 2012 launch of their Climate education initiative. See my previous post here (2/21/12 @ 12:00pm: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/21/ncse-accepts-gleicks-resignation/ )

Just a few more thoughts along these lines….
On Friday January 14 NCSE announced that Gleick would be joining their BOD in association with the NCSE’s launch of a major new effort directed at K-12 climate education. Clearly, in-depth discussions between Gleick and the NCSE leadership regarding this new initiative and strategies would have taken place over a period of time prior to this announcement date. On the following Monday the 16th the initiative was officially launched and over the following few days there were countless stories in both the MSM and the blogosphere regarding the new NCSE program. Many of the stories were based not only on the NCSE press release but also interviews with Eugenia Scott** or other NCSE personnel.

“The question is self-censorship and intimidation. What you have to watch for is the ‘hecklers’ veto,’ ” she said. “If a teacher ignores a particular topic, it will likely go unnoticed.”

Climate change skeptics like James Taylor, environmental policy fellow at the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, said the pushback in schools and legislatures reflected public frustration at being told “only one side of the global warming debate — the scientifically controversial theory that humans are creating a global warming crisis.”

“It is therefore not surprising that state legislatures are stepping in to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not spent in a manner that turns an important and ongoing scientific debate into a propaganda assault on impressionable students,” Taylor said.
/end quote

Ok, so a good journalist seeks out an opposing pov to include in the article and it just happens to be from the Heartland Institute. Then I read this one from Cosmic Log on MSNBC (http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/17/10175732-evolution-defenders-to-fight-climate-skeptics) January 17 2:40pm EST
/Quote
Nevertheless, anti-global warming messages spread by groups such as the Heartland Institute, Scott said, are used by grassroots activists to pressure school boards and educators to teach that global warming is controversial.
/end quote
Two things really scream at me from this quote:
1 – Scott specifically points to the Heartland Institute. Really??? No disrespect to HI but in terms of NCSE’s so-called “anti-global warming” messengers there are others who are both better known and more effective at exposing the CAGW fraud, e.g. WUWT. But Scott fingers HI, did she know something about HI was about to break in the coming days?
2 – Scott’s use of the phrase “anti-global warming” is strikingly similar to the “anti-climate” term used in the faked HI Strategy document that was “sent” to Gleick. Though this is a fairly common term.

It sure seems to me that the HI was being set up to be NCSE’s villain and this could have been significant in motivating Glieck to do what he did.

Why is it that all them self-proclaimed elite alarmist are so paranoid? Every criticism against what they say ends up as a imaginary slight against their person and every such critic seem to be, in their world be, funded by oily unimaginably evil forces.

REPLY: Doubtful. James Taylor works in the HI Chicago office. All the staffer would have to do is look across the hall and wonder “why are you emailing me? No, Gleick the “genius”, thought this out, likely choosing somebody he knew could NOT be in Chicago. Choosing a Chicago person would be making it too easy to flag. – Anthony

Good link. I can see how that kind of expose could cause Gleick’s head to begin exploding, Back then the Team was more confident that they could get away with anything so not likely to panic at that stage, but sure could have fed into what eventually did happen.

I have to say that I sure understand Gleick’s bit about “reading them makes my head explode. They are written as though from a completely different universe — some parallel universe where up is down, left is right, and global warming isn’t happening…. whew”

That’s how I feel whenever I read the warmist/alarmist/True Believer articles or comments where any discussion of any scientific evidence supporting a skeptics position — no matter how valid — is instantaneously branded as immoral pseudo-science from anti-science right-wing wingnuts (or insert the insult of choice) out to kill grandbabies and the entire planet.

It seems to be a reflex reaction on the part of so many like Gleick, no matter how valid the science or how well credentialed or eminent the person or scientist expressing the viewpoint, or even how liberal the political persuasion of the person may be in reality. Although I also suspect when people like Gleick read skeptic’s arguments, he’s enraged where I’m just gobsmacked and puzzled. For me, it’s just virtually impossible to understand responses and beliefs that are so far divorced from any sense of reality or fairness.

One of the common anti-Heartland meme’s seems to be the bit about how they supposedly knowledgeably pushed ‘anti or pseudo-science’ about how smoking was supposedly safe and harmless, etc. Can anyone fill me in briefly on just what Heartland actually did or didn’t do in this regard? I know that they provided legal defense of some tobacco interest, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge about it… and yet I can’t count the number of times that I’ve seen comments about how ‘clearly they’re anti-science wrt AGW because they were anti-science wrt tobacco, and the unscrupulous methods used are identical, yada, yada.’ (nice logical fallacy, although if ‘guilty’ it doesn’t reflect well on Heartland). I don’t even know how long ago Heartland provided that legal defense…

It would be nice to know some of the facts involved from a distinctly unbiased viewpoint – but I confess, not enough for me to be willing to take the time and effort digging thru everything to try to figure it out. So if anyone here knows and is willing to share the info, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

The idea that big oil and coal feel threatened by flakey climate scientists is just silly. The cost of greeny/warmy regulations is just passed on to the customer at a profit. They also deter smaller competitors. There is no credible green alternative. Of course renwable energy is an appealing concept but a source without serious flaws is yet to be found.

Big energy companies will make money under any set of rules whether Gleick likes it or not.

Do you think sulfate aerosol emissions from our formerly much-dirtier coal-fired power plants could have depressed mean global temps an amount that you consider significant, say 2%? If so, then you too can answer yes. It’s a poorly worded question, it doesn’t specify the change and the respondent must decide what they consider to be significant. Between land use changes, black carbon (soot) emissions, a bunch of other things, one can easily find a human-based “significant contributing factor” somewhere, and without even resorting to specifying “greenhouse gas emissions” at all.

One of the common anti-Heartland meme’s seems to be the bit about how they supposedly knowledgeably pushed ‘anti or pseudo-science’ about how smoking was supposedly safe and harmless, etc. Can anyone fill me in briefly on just what Heartland actually did or didn’t do in this regard?

Go over to Heartland…hit the ‘Policy Bot’ button and type smoking into the search field. You will get a list of everything heartland has done related to smoking since at least 1993.http://heartland.org/

I’m a smoker…so I see Heartlands activities as ‘defending my right to smoke’. Others might have a different opinion.

He gets huge amounts of money and prestige for pushing the cause. The cause corresponds to his convictions that humans are inherently corrupt and destructive and need to be controlled so everything about the cause has to be correct. He sees his enemies as no better than himself so they must also be motivated by greed. They must be funded by greedy capitalists who profit by selling fossil fuels. Primarily he hates and despises people who threaten his source of money and power which is the cause. He is a typical leftist elite that sees evil and greed in all others that do what they do for money but somehow sees himself as pure and noble because he is doing it for the cause. That trumps the need to act rationally or ethically.

Rational DB8 is a flame war that Anthony would prefer not clutter up the Gleick threads but in brief [and feel free to leave it moderated Anthony if this is to much]. Remember the big fight a few years ago over second hand smoke and the legislation that was up to be passed. Being a libertarian group Heartland opposed the legislation on the grounds of poor science in the studies. There was no claim that smoking itself didn’t cause cancer or contribute to it but instead that the link wasn’t demonstrated for second hand smoke. That was essentially the “anti-science” claim that is attributed to them.

And with that I think our host would like this irrelevant side topic to stop. Sadly it comes up again and again because some people want to fight that war again and others simply don’t know anything about it.

On the “integrity_of_science” page is this request
“What can you do?
If you are aware of instances of science misuse and abuse, from personal experience or your local paper, bring them to our attention! E-mail integrityofscience(at)pacinst.org.”

This further reveals Gleick’s appalling lack of objectivity, as does Gleick’s call for the Heartland Institute to release the names of its donors while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of global warming activist groups have been far less transparent than the Heartland Institute.

The political left has an entire foundation which was designed from the start for the purpose of hiding donors to “progressive” causes. It is called Tides Foundation. The idea is that you may donate to Tides and “earmark” your donation for a specific organization. At the end of some period of time, Tides bundles up your donation along with those of others who have also “earmarked” donations to this specific cause along with any Tides might decide to make for those who have donated to Tides for general use. So Tides shows a donation from you but are not required to note how you “earmarked” your donation. The target organization shows only a single donation from Tides which might include cash from many people. The entire purpose of Tides was “donation laundering” so that people could remain at arms’ length from the organizations to which they are donating and not appear on the roll of donors of that organization. Some of the most significant donors to Tides are George Soros, Heinz Foundation (John Kerry’s wife, Theresa Heiz), MacArthur Foundation, and many other familiar names. But the idea is purpose-built for donation laundering.

Whoever reads this for Mr. Gleick, please note that this former scientist/student from PSU will give his money to the Heartland Institute in the future and not Mr. Mann’s PSU. The old PSU taught me what real science was all about. The current one, not so much. Open all your records Mr. Mann.

It seems to me we are approaching an end game. The Gleick farce has an ‘end of days’ feel to it. I am actually very very sad that it has come to this. The politicisation of science is bad. The emnity in the scientific world is bad. This is a very very bad situation that the mainstream warming advocates – namely the general scientific community – come out of shellshocked and smokeblackened OK, maybe something healthy can come from it, but there’s no need to have a total [SNIP: language. The asterisks are supposed to replace letters, not separate them. -REP] up like this.

“I think that’s also a good defense that might keep him from doing jail time.”

Uh, yeah, sure, just like John Wilkes Booth: “I was in a fearsome rage ’cause yew Yankees won the War. It’s not mah fault. Now, let me go, y’all.” Right. Great defense. Booth sure didn’t do any jail time. Nossir.

neill says: “I’m concerned that this may step up to actual physical violence visited on ‘Deniers’.”

There is that possibility. The Warmist Kool-Aid drinkers I’ve seen in public have, without expception, been spittle-spewing wackos. In the short run, however, as the wheels come off the AGW bus, Warmists who “know too much” may be in danger of being silenced by other Warmists farther up the food chain.

It appears that January 27th. 2012 was the date of the Great Gleick Implosion, known as GGI to historians :-) who count it as the beginning of the Downfall of Crimatology. :-) Yes, I am gloating at a man’s personal misfortune. He brought it on himself and one less misanthropist, the better for humanity.

I think he figured he could get away with it. I hope the climategate gang understand their role in this, along with the climategate investigative panels with their buckets of white wash. I fear this man will be the scapegoat in what has become a mighty stench in the halls of Ivory towers.

There are many tactics used to argue for or against scientific conclusions that are inappropriate, involve deceit, or directly abuse the scientific process.

Personal (“Ad Hominem”) Attacks
This approach uses attacks against the character, circumstances, or motives of a person in order to discredit their argument or claim, independent of the scientific evidence.
Demonization
Guilt by Association
Challenge to Motive (such as greed or funding)

If you look at the letter from the 255 you will find Peter Gleick listed first followed by an asterisk separating his name from the rest of the names which are ordered A-Z. Evidently he was the instigator of the letter.

Since the WSJ didn’t publish the letter, the vast circulation of the WSJ wasn’t going to see Peter Gleick having pride of place ahead of 244 other scientists. Given the size of his ego that must have been another thing that galled him to no end. Heh heh.

Dude says:
February 25, 2012 at 2:10 pm
“What do you think of my Climate Change video?
”
Best of all the computer puppet talk videos I’ve seen! ROTFL!
Think I will use this technique when the cooling trend leads us into the next scare. Climate scares come in pairs.

It is well known that no one can succeed without integrity – AND WHEN YOU LEARN TO SUCCESSFULLY FAKE INTEGRITY, There is no limit to how high you may rise.

Gleik was doing great, being appointed to various supposedly scientific leadership roles and even to an organization with INTEGRITY in its name.

But, like Icarus, who flying with wax wings, ignored his father’s advice not to fly too high else the Sun would melt the wax, he has lost his wings and come down, painfully, to Earth. By the way, The word “sincere” literally means “without wax” and refers to the unethical practice of filling cracks in marble statues with wax to conceal those faults. Gleik was successful for some time, but now his faulty cracks are revealed for all to see.

To Ira Glickstein:
Its the forceful SUN irradiation effects and the TSI, which you mean is which downed Gleick by
melting his wings…….. and which will`soon melt the other Warmist lies and crowd…. its the SUN stupid …..as the Skeptics say…
JS

The possibility of violence from zealots of any ideology when they are unavoidable confronted with conflicting reality is a sobering thought.

There certainly are some spooky Mother Gaia worshiping human beings who spout Malthusian dogma about drastic urgent population reductions and I do not think they are talking about birth control as a means.

I am concerned about the more zealous of the ‘cause’ supporters will go into an absurdly irrational ‘scorched earth’ mode.

Paul Coppin says: “Gleick has a Napoleon complex. He is emotionally and intellectually unstable. [snip – a bit over the top – Anthony]”

I’m not so sure he fits that category. Some interesting info here:

“We all have a “messiah complex” dwelling deep within. But not everyone becomes completely possessed and grandiosely inflated by it. The desire to redeem and “save the world,” when kept in check, can be a very positive force in life…But when one has been chronically frustrated in realizing this positive, creative potentiality, it remains stillborn in the unconscious, dissociated from the personality, rendering them highly susceptible to possession by the messiah complex…”

Yes, it is instructive to put Gleick’s situation in the perspective of mythology. Let me think about how to put his story into one of Joseph Campbell’s monomythic forms. Of course this would not be of theme of ‘a hero with a thousand faces’. Or would it if the hero failed in his quest do to an innate tragic flaw. Thinking.

What ever other people may say I strongly resist the notion that the Fakegate affair represents a crime of passion. I don’t think it fits that profile at all, regardless of how emotionally unballanced Peter Gleick may or may not be. I happen to think it represents a poorly developed character and mental imbalance, but that’s just my opinion.

I have made my own analysis of Peter Gleick’s state of mind that ultimately lead him to committing these acts. I am assuming that he will ultimately be proven to be the author of the fake memorandum [though of course I could be proven wrong]

Night before last I was watching Peter Brooks’ 1994 movie Heavenly Creatures about the Parker-Hulme Murder Case and was struck by the psychological parallels as well as some other basic features of their crimes.

Leave it to me to have to be the one to come up with this stuff.

If you follow the story of Pauline Parker/Rieper and Juliet Hulme and their actions several features of their personalities and behaviors are salient and warrant some comparison to Gleick and the Fakegate affair, outrageous as it may seem, so please bear with me.

From the Wikipedia article:
“The Parker-Hulme Murder was a murder and subsequent court case that occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954, achieving notoriety because a mother was murdered by two teenage girls: her daughter and her daughter’s best friend.

On June 22, 1954, the body of Honora Rieper was discovered in Victoria Park, in Christchurch, New Zealand. That morning Honora had gone for a walk through Victoria Park with her daughter Pauline Parker, and Pauline’s best friend, Juliet Hulme. Approximately 420 feet (130 m) down the path, in a wooded area of the park near a small wooden bridge, Hulme and Parker bludgeoned Honora Rieper to death with half a brick enclosed in an old stocking. After committing the carefully planned murder, the two girls fled, covered in blood, back to the tea kiosk where the three of them had eaten only minutes before. They were met by Agnes and Kenneth Ritchie, owners of the tea shop, whom they told in a horrified panic that Honora had fallen and hit her head. The body of Honora Rieper was found by Kenneth Ritchie where she had been killed by the girls. Major lacerations were found about Honora’s head, neck, and face, with minor injuries to her fingers. Police soon discovered the murder weapon in the nearby woods. The girls’ story of how Honora was killed by a slip quickly fell apart.”

The first things to note is that both Pauline and Juliet were both highly emotional and delicately balanced creatures emotionally and psychologically. Both were rebellious and cast as social outsiders because they had be invalids earlier in life. They were both bright and went to the best girls high school in town. Pauline was of at least average intelligence and Juliet may have been of very above average intelligence being the daughter of English physicist Dr. Henry Hulme. They were both highly creative, imaginative and very high opinions of themselves and their superior genius to all of those around them.

Secondly, in the course of their two year relationship they lost ties completely with their peer group and family, and became more and more detached from reality as they retreated as a diad into a self-created fantasy world as a way to compensate for their problems relating to their families and society around them. They became quite mad.

Thirdly, as the pathology of their relationship became increasingly apparent, both sets of parents tried to intervene by attempting to put limit on Pauline and Juliet’s time together. This was steadily resisted by the girls and drove them even further into alienation.

Fourthly, a crisis forced the issue. The dissolution of the Hulme marriage, as well as the Hulme parents desire to permanently separate the girls, was going to force Juliet to leave the country against her will. Pauline at this point, already demonizing her own mother Honora conceived the plan to kill her and then leave the country accompanied by Juliet as a way to resolve the crisis. Juliet, otherwise the ringleader in the relationship seems to have taken the more passive role in the murder plot, though she actively participated in the killing. Both girls rationalize their behavior beforehand.

Finally, the crime itself, though carefully planned beforehand was thoroughly naive and doomed to fall apart once discovered. Stupido.

Now go ahead and place Peter Gleick in the role of Pauline Parker and Climate Alarmism in the role of Juliet Hulme, the tell me what you think.

Yes, it is instructive to put Gleick’s situation in the perspective of mythology. Let me think about how to put his story into one of Joseph Campbell’s monomythic forms. Of course this would not be of theme of ‘a hero with a thousand faces’. Or would it if the hero failed in his quest do to an innate tragic flaw. Thinking.

John

Now I have it!!!

HI is the hero of the Joseph Campbell style monomyth a la the ‘hero of a thousand faces’, not Gleick.

That works!!! I will have a monomyth for you soon with the HI vs Gleick meme.

Folks, I’m getting the uneasy feeling that within the next week or so we’ll be reading about how P.G. has either been admitted into some sort of mental care environment or has “gone postal” (in order to “help save the planet”) in the foyer of one of the organisations that have dared to contribute to HL, or perhaps even at HL (or, for that matter, forbes) itself.

From what has already been plastered all over teh webs, the guy seems to be quite unhinged and certainly quite the fanatic for his chosen religion. It certainly seems to be more important to him than honesty, integrity, his very career, and thus, perhaps even his very family.

In short, he has gone over an edge from which there is no simple or quick return.

One would hope that suitable authorities are keeping a close eye upon him at the moment and are ready and prepared to step in should he choose to try and physically harm his percieved enemies.

Isn’t the CAGW theory in itself a bit arrogant? Adhering to such a dominant role for humanity in climate matters? Maybe the theory by it’s very nature is attractive to the arrogant person? Like a lamp attracts insects…
If not arrogant, I feel this theory acts like an infectious agent, and it has affected a lot of people. It has caused some form of mass panic. Say you would really believe this theory. And a lot of persons seem to do so. This must be a terrible plight. It would explain a lot of the behaviour. Even scientists in high positions start behaving erratically.
The paradox being, their phobia blinds the CAGW-believers for basic science, while it is basic science that could give them relief.

Gleick appears to have tried to embarrass Heartland by exposing fossil industry funds. It backfired.Why Climate Skeptics are Winning Too many of their opponents are intellectual thugs. Stephen Hayward, The Weekly Standard 5 March 2012

The dog that didn’t bark for the climateers in this story is the great disappointment that Heartland receives only a tiny amount of funding from fossil fuel sources​—​and none from ExxonMobil, still the bête noire of the climateers. Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that natural gas mogul T. Boone Pickens had given $453,000 to the left-wing Center for American Progress for its “clean energy” projects, and Chesapeake Energy gave the Sierra Club over $25 million (anonymously until it leaked out) for the Club’s anti-coal ad campaign. Turns out the greens take in much more money from fossil fuel interests than the skeptics do.

Those pondering psychological excuses that might explain Gleick’s apparently criminal behavior should remember the standard used in American courts: at the time he committed the crime, did he know what he was doing was wrong?

Gleick can argue that he was doing the right thing until he’s blue in the face, but it’s unlikely a jury would buy it, given the history of his egregious behavior, and his “ethics” positions.

The central issue is that Gleick confessed to wrongdoing [with an apology that sounded like he was saying it with his fingers crossed behind his back]. Everything else is interesting, but peripheral to Gleick’s admission – just like Connolley being booted from Wikipedia marks his character, and taints his scientific opinions. They will both say anything if it advances the alarmist narrative, because the truth is not in them.

Jurgen says:
February 25, 2012 at 4:33 pm
“Isn’t the CAGW theory in itself a bit arrogant? Adhering to such a dominant role for humanity in climate matters? Maybe the theory by it’s very nature is attractive to the arrogant person? Like a lamp attracts insects…”

It is simply the current vehicle for alarmists. Like the threat of weather-cooking witches was during the times of the inquisition.

What triggered it? Gleick and his defenders are fanatics. Every utterance out of their mouths, every word they put to paper, bears the hallmarks of fanaticism. The fact that virtually ALL of them are extremely left of center–far beyond the mainstream of American Democrats–on a wing nut populated by fewer than 15% of the general population should be a giveaway that these people and their views are extraordinarily unbalanced.

Thank you both, especially LamontT. Just knowing it was over 2nd hand smoke makes all the difference in the world. I’d looked into that issue some time ago and decided the games played with statistics made it pretty bogus or at the very least highly questionable. I’ll leave it at that – don’t want to sidetrack the thread any further – but do very much appreciate knowing the core of the issue, and where to easily find more on the Heartland site.

[SNIP:Mike, Jim… [addendum: finally figured which universe. So many universes, so little time… referring to universes 213.67.89.2300 – 213.67.89.2311; universes 119.02.12.11 and 797.11.83.44 imploded two standard years after this comment was posted….. contact has been lost….] in an alternate universe, one in which I did not snip this comment, you are howling “why did they let me do that?” Damned if I do and Hot Damned if I don’t. In this universe, I don’t want Steve Mosher lurking in a dark parking lot waiting for the opportunity to strike and eat and your still beating heart before your eyes. -REP]

I think that zootcadillac may have hit a nail on the head, I’ve often thought that many of the “Hockey Team” behaved in narcisisstic ways,

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

to date I’ve been able to resist the urge to think flat-out that they were narcissists but that is increasingly difficult.

Ok, this is far-fetched, but could I have helped push him over the edge? Well, actually maybe it could have been Tom Nelson, who linked to Gleick’s ludicrous “Climate Change is Happening” youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HKIPL-ksU3k , and so got me and some other coldists to go over there and leave some cutting comments just over a month ago (see p10 & 11 of comments for mine as EricS0072). Here’s my first comment:

Two points: 1. current temperatures are not unusual (the hockey stick graph fully debunked), and 2. CO2 has only been demonstrated to be a result (and not a cause) of warming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg
In other words: there is nothing wrong with the climate, and CO2 has nothing to do with it. We don’t need some bearded super-intellectual scientist to give us his liberal spin on a﻿ trumped up “science.”

And my second comment:

“but you climate denial nuts try”
ndrthrd, while you are quick to insult me, and contradict some of my points, you give no evidence﻿ at all to back your positions. It’s not so just because you say it’s so. And this isn’t a game of pushing Like & Dislike buttons. There’s serious & costly consequences to the cap & trade type proposals that the leftists, like the bearded professor here, try to foist upon the rest of us.[I got 9 Likes for this comment!]

On Feb 12th realclimate had a whiny blog post about alleged death threats. Maybe Gleick read it and believed it, unhinged as he seems to be, and got more radicalized than was good for him.
We Skeptics usually hang out amongst our kind, and the warmists do the same thing. We might miss when they go into a group panicking mode, scaring each other.
On Feb 14th DeSmogBlog published. Could this fit?

I think the simplest explanation is that he is just a rather narrow fellow having lived in the bubble of UC Berkeley and Oakland CA, talking only to the echo chamber. This is a revealing quote:

(though a careful reader of this post by Taylor will note that he accidentally acknowledges global warming is occurring)

Well, Peter doesn’t know much about what Taylor believes. He’s erected a villain in his own mind that explains the world to him (i.e. evil people blocking what is obviously Truth)…and he assumes he knows this villain and his every move….and that he, Peter, is even smart enough to catch the villain is his own contradictions. Obviously, this speaks volumes about Peter…but not so much about HI.

An extract from the comments on Gleick’s Forges post really got my goat. This was from a supposed “physicist””

ronniethebear 1 month ago
Right now, CO2 concentrations are higher than at any point in the last 3.5 million years. The effects are uncertain but are all negative, ranging from increased wars and competition for increasingly scarce resources and airiable land to mass extinction including the human race!

He went from what seemed to be a fairly reasonable discussion of the science and physics involved to a totally unwarranted conclusion. Not A Scientist!

>>
How ironic that a AGW proponent would crash and burn by flying too close to the sun – I guess they really DON’T believe the sun is hot ;-)
>>

No, it’s Greek mythology that got it all wrong. The naive understanding of climate that they had at that time led them to think it was the sun that melted the wax. Now that we have a far more detailed understanding we realise that he must have flown into the tropical lower troposphere where all those “hot spots” are should be.

By the way, The word “sincere” literally means “without wax” and refers to the unethical practice of filling cracks in marble statues with wax to conceal those faults. Gleik was successful for some time, but now his faulty cracks are revealed for all to see.

Thank you both, especially LamontT. Just knowing it was over 2nd hand smoke makes all the difference in the world.

I think it says a great deal about the general credibility of our opponents that they virtually never accuse HI of defending second-hand smoke–it’s always “tobacco”–deliberately leaving readers to make the assumption that smoking was involved–and even a connection with smoking’s defenders in the 50s. In other words, they knowingly smear.

Dr. Phil Jones – CRU – 2005
“We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=1249

This is just one of the reasons why the debate is not over, the science is not settled. Climate scientists seem to forget about how science is supposed to work and a stuck in a siege mentality.

It’s hard to believe there’s enough complexity to the issue to warrant such an avalanche of posts about Peter Gleick’s admission. He did wrong, He ‘fessed up. He will suffer for it. It appears to be an isolated incident. What else is there?

Has the climategate leaker/hacker come forward, or does this person remain an ‘anonymous coward’?

passive smoking is not a health risk in the same way that HIV and AIDS are not linked, and evolution is a hoax because no one has seen it happen.

Heartland, like the CATO Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, are lobby groups, otherwise known as ‘think tanks’. CATO and Heartland both publish glossies downplaying the risks of tobacco, whether it be direct smoking, passive smoking or snuff or snus. You can find plenty of pdfs at Heartland seriously criticising the anti-smoking ‘propaganda – a couple I just looked at were not to do with passive smoking, they were about direct smoking.

Here is a document arguing that quit campaigns should be replaced by initiatives to move smokers on to ‘less harmful’ tobacco products.

Here is a Heartland document that quibbles about the number of smoking-related deaths per year in the US (direct smoking).

There are hundreds of ‘reports’ like this.

The tobacco companies and their shills know they can no longer spin the bull about direct smoking. So they spin with whatever is left. The risks of passive smoking is as solid science as the risks of direct smoking, but CATO and Heartland still publish on it – I think that’s because of their funding and also because of their political ideology.

Their best target is other libertarians, who divest themselves of any skepticism, objectivity and rational thought whenever the topic smacks of a nanny government. It wouldn’t matter if the science supporting a national scheme was ironclad and the policy implications unavoidable – libertarians (and many other kinds of conservatives) don’t like government bureaucracy and therefore will blindly accept whatever Junk Science* comes their way that supports their political position.

* (‘Junk Science’ is a blog written by Steve Milloy, which tries to delink passive smoking and health risk. It was discovered that Milloy was being paid by Philip Morris Tobacco – also while working for Fox News as their science guy. Fox retained his services and did not publicise his external funding)

The bottom line is that money talks, and big tobacco pays people to spin arns about tobacco. Heartland is one of a number of organizations that do it.

For Heartland, their political agenda informs their focus and argumentation in science. They are a lobby group. It’s not a secret or anything, it’s obvious.

Gleick received funding (public EPA grant records) to support his institute and pay himself a salary. The prospect that he could or interestingly, probably would loose a public debate organized by HI, left him with three options
1) Debate and loose = Salary and fawning AGW cultist admiration drys up. The “team” frowns upon him and he his cast out of the clique.
2) Decline to debate = You cannot support your position based on science and “salary” and fawning admiration dries up (stop here if ethical and honest) but you are still in with the team.
3) Decline to debate based on HI’s obviously agenda driven big fossil fuel funded donars. Steal donar list to attempt to publicly discredit HI and justify your reasons not to debate (especially after HI reps kicked sand in his face in the Forbes editorials). = Reputation intact with the team, the cause is defended and of course he still get to pay himself a nice salary derived in part from the taxpayers.

Option 3 seemed like a really smart idea until it all went pear shaped in a hurry. His actions can only evidence that there is a strange cult like undercurrent on that side of the things or simply, that he does not have any other marketable skills to sustain an income other than writing grants for taxpayer funds squeezed from the EPA udder .

It’s hard to believe there’s enough complexity to the issue to warrant such an avalanche of posts about Peter Gleick’s admission. He did wrong, He ‘fessed up. He will suffer for it. It appears to be an isolated incident. What else is there?

Has the climategate leaker/hacker come forward, or does this person remain an ‘anonymous coward’?

– – – – – –

barry,

In one respect you are right. Since Gleick confessed (only partially) and made his non-apology I THINK YOU WOULD HAVE MANN AND JONES do the same. Please advise them accordingly.

In another respect you are wrong, Even if the Gleick affair and the CG1/CG2 affairs had similar contexts, which they do not, then Gleick is indeed one of America’s dumbest criminals. Whereas, ‘We’ of CG1/CG2 (aka as FOIA) appears much more intelligent than the ‘genius’ Gleick. Gleick’s heroism is actually just stupidity . . . if he was going to do a job at least he should have applied his publically acclaimed ‘genius’ to it.

His actions can only evidence that there is a strange cult like undercurrent on that side of the things

I doubt it. While plenty of blogs are enjoying the access to Heartland’s papers, and one or two commenters are trying to excuse it, the general view is that Gleick’s action was indefensible. Eg, Gavin Schmidt’s inline response here.

I think it says a great deal about the general credibility of our opponents that they virtually never accuse HI of defending second-hand smoke–it’s always “tobacco”–deliberately leaving readers to make the assumption that smoking was involved–and even a connection with smoking’s defenders in the 50s. In other words, they knowingly smear.

Agreed. That was the exact assumptions I’d made, although as you saw, I’m unwilling to believe claims until I’ve at least looked into all major “sides” involved a bit myself. Particularly when the claim typically comes without any supporting links or data, as is almost always the case with the “heartland-tobacco” smear, at least that I’ve seen. I’d also have to say that I bet there are a lot of people who just repeat a smear they’ve heard without checking details… e.g., that subset are guilty of ‘ignorantly smearing,’ instead of ‘knowingly smearing.’ Difficult to say which category is worse, so I won’t even try. Both range from merely bad to pretty despicable, all depending on how vocal and adamant and extreme the particular individual happens to be about it.

passive smoking is not a health risk in the same way that HIV and AIDS are not linked, and evolution is a hoax because no one has seen it happen.

My, you’re a wonderful spinner of propaganda. Heartland has not argued against the proven link HIV -> AIDS. Nor have they argued that evolution is a hoax, and evolution has been observed repeatedly on the microbial level, and on the multicellular level as specific lifeforms successfully prosper in newly established niches.

“Passive smoking” is another critter. Remember the saying, “The solution to pollution is dilution.” Many people are exposed to smoke of many types, from wood and charcoal and burning oils, from grills and from cooking food, backyard trash burning, etc. Firefighters are exposed to lots of smoke with many known carcinogens. Yet there are studies that show firefighters do not have an increase in lung cancer (one, two). So what is so special about tobacco smoke that it warrants the ongoing propaganda war against the merest wisp of it anywhere someone else might perchance breathe in a fraction of it?

Here is a document arguing that quit campaigns should be replaced by initiatives to move smokers on to ‘less harmful’ tobacco products.

Yeah, so what? Smokers are nicotine addicts. Companies are doing great business now selling “nicotine replacement” products that deliver the nicotine to the addicts without the smoking. But those products tend to be expensive, more so than smoking itself. I’ve known people trying to quit who gave up trying to pay for the replacements and just went back to smoking. The tobacco companies are making affordable smokeless products that still give the addicts their nicotine hit. As mentioned here, they can be very discrete, no spitting needed. And the addicts are not getting all that smoke in their lungs thus not getting the lung cancer and other respiratory ailments.

Really, if you got a problem with “harm reduction” among addicts, you should be campaigning against supplying “free needles” to those who “shoot up” their drug of choice.

Here is a Heartland document that quibbles about the number of smoking-related deaths per year in the US (direct smoking).

Like your previous link, this is not a Heartland document, merely archived on their server space. Likewise there are documents archived on WUWT (wordpress) space that are not “WUWT documents”. This is a 1998 Cato Institute piece, arguing about exact attribution.

Here’s a tip: Finding something in someone’s reference pile does not denote acceptance of all or anything in that reference. You haven’t shown that Heartland accepts anything in that 1998 piece. And portraying that they do by calling it a “Heartland document” is, well, less than honest.

Thanks, Barry, for further cementing the impression that Heartland is being unfairly demonized and smeared by fanatics who could give a whit about the actual science and facts involved. Start your rant with a few over the top an incorrect analogies, then make a reasonable sounding statement followed by links to…. did you even bother actually reading the documents at your own links???!!!?? You just shot yourself down entirely with your own links. Then you move on to name calling and demonizing, projecting eeeeeeee-vil beliefs and morals onto an organization that by your own links is producing hard facts and relevant data which debunks the poor if not fraudulent use of statistics.

The day I’m convinced that hard science and facts somehow prove the opposite of what that data actually shows is the day someone ought to institutionalize me. It’s mind blowing that people actually try to pull this — and somehow think it proves or helps their cause — rather than tanks it.

Anthony, Can we get back to actual science ( a nice article about Sun for instance) , all this talk about Peter Gleick, who is [snip], and Heartland ,who are arguably slightly unhinged on some matters, is getting terribly boring.

correct, Heartland didn’t author the documents. But why do you think they archive this stuff? Intellectual curiosity, do you reckon?

Both documents were written by other policy think tank members (Cato Institute and Capital Research Center). All three lobby groups have received tobacco funding, and all three do PR for tobacco companies, among other industry.

Heartland’s tobacco lobbying is mainly at government level and not so much in the public eye (they’ve removed their central policy document on tobacco from their website), but the internet is a big archive.

Someone quibbled upthread about whether Heartland confines its lobbying to passive smoking. That’s what I’m responding to. It doesn’t. Heartland also lobbies for lowered taxes on cigarettes and downplays the risks of direct smoking. It’s perfectly legal for Heartland to lobby for big tobacco and any other legal entity. I don’t know why anyone would bother trying to downplay that Heartland does this, but it reeks of spin when they do.

Official Climate refugees-I don’t know if anyone has claimed climate refugee status but my husband and I claim climate refugee status on Feb 28th. Leaving cold snowy Ontario Canada for balmy Bahamas. I have been so busy, I almost missed reading about the fakegate. I went to desmog blog today; they are still posting and yelling about it so I think they missed the news. The warmists can freeze to death, I don’t care anymore.

correct, Heartland didn’t author the documents. But why do you think they archive this stuff? Intellectual curiosity, do you reckon?

The Library of Congress has a reportedly impressive Third Reich Collection. Does that mean Congress has accepted the positions of the Third Reich?

Both documents were written by other policy think tank members (Cato Institute and Capital Research Center). All three lobby groups have received tobacco funding, and all three do PR for tobacco companies, among other industry.

Heartland’s tobacco lobbying is mainly at government level and not so much in the public eye (they’ve removed their central policy document on tobacco from their website), but the internet is a big archive.
…
2009 policy overview – http://www.illinoissmokersrights.com/heartland_chgo_meeting_071105.html (the link to the full doc is the one that has been removed from the Heartland website)

So you found a mis-dated severely chopped-up piece on an anti-smoking site with a bad link, and this leads to your implying there’s a nefarious plot by Heartland to sanitize their site by removing the original full document? Which IS NOT the “central policy document” you portrayed it as being.

*groan* You’re pathetic. Your defending of Gleick as far as you can, and attacking Heartland to make up the difference, is really looking rather obvious in its motivation to me.

What have you got against facts? Are you allergic to them or something? I could give a rip if the facts ‘downplay’ or ‘up-play’ whatever the common impression of something is. For that matter, I’m greatly appreciative of facts which do anything to correct any general false impressions that exist regardless of the topic. Which is how anyone who cares about a subject or about science ought to be.

After that, this is trivial – but what is wrong with lobbying for lowered taxes? Frankly, it’s always seemed hinkey to me that the government demonizes something, going so far as to use photoshopped gore/scare photos, all the while claiming that it’s reasonable for them to profit more from someone’s labor and product than is the case for labor and products from other industries. Particularly when the people harmed most by that tax are by far the poorest in our nation to begin with. Talk about a regressive tax.

At this point I would be surprised if you weren’t labeling me a troglodyte smoker in your mind, so perhaps I’d best tell you that I don’t smoke, I’ve never smoked (unless you count snitching a single cigarette from my parent when I was a very little kid. Then using it to teach myself how to blow smoke rings while doing everything I could to not get it in my lungs – and once since then as an adult to see if I could still blow rings, yep, still could), and I hate smoking. But I’ll also defend any adult’s right to decide to smoke it they want to, so long as they aren’t two feet from me blowing it in my face. Two feet from me with the smoke drifting in another direction, fine.

The only ‘spin’ so far in this thread is clearly coming from people who apparently care more about the impressions than the facts – even when that means wasted money and laws and policies that don’t properly prioritize and deal with risks.

You didn’t just respond to whether Heartland confines it’s lobbying to second hand smoke, you went far beyond that and far into spin and advocacy. You showed rather clearly that you could give a rip for what the actual facts of a matter are, you just want to demonize anything you don’t happen to like personally. That’s the only thing that reeks of spin and deception here.

the policy document, mentioned at the top of the page on the article I linked, is called “Tobacco and Freedom.” It has been removed from Heartland’s website. Various websites link to it but the doc is no longer there. I searched for it at Heartland. You are welcome to try and retrieve it. It was written by Joseph Bast and Maureen Martin.

No mention of the letter from Joseph Bast to the Philip Morris rep, in which Heartland lobby efforts for big tobacco are laid out? Your focus appears to be a bit lop-sided.

What Gleick did was indefensible – I’ve said as much in a few posts upthread. Despite the knee-jerk reaction to my posts, I have little interest in pursuing the topic beyond the misconception that Heartland doesn’t lobby in favour of direct (not just passive) smoking. Your conjecture on my motives is just wrong. You seem to have a need to frame my participation in a certain way. Go for it. I’m not interested in whatever paradigm you need to reinforce. I’m certainly not interested in promoting any.

I see a lot of hand-waving over some of my assertions, and some character assessment of me personally, but absolutely no discussion of the facts as I presented them from you or anyone else.

Which of these do you think are non-factual?

1. Heartland Institute, Cato and other think tanks lobby government representatives.
2. They do PR-like activities for various industries.
3. Their ‘science’ reports are guided by their policy agendas.
4. Heartland’s tobacco lobbying includes direct smoking, not just passive smoking. (This is where entered the topic)
5. The medical science behind the risks of passive smoking is solid.

the policy document, mentioned at the top of the page on the article I linked, is called “Tobacco and Freedom.” It has been removed from Heartland’s website. Various websites link to it but the doc is no longer there. I searched for it at Heartland. You are welcome to try and retrieve it. It was written by Joseph Bast and Maureen Martin.

YO, MORON!

IT’S THE SAME DOCUMENT. I don’t care what “tobacco.org” gave it for a title. Do you think Heartland titled their own document “MARTIN/BAST”? Look at the text, the parts that “tobacco.org” have match verbatim with the full document that’s still on Heartland’s site

Good Lord, you’re so stupid you must be deliberately stupid. How else can you keep claiming Heartland deleted a document that is still there in plain view?

I put the evidence right before your eyes, you ignore it and keep blabbering away with your little “conspiracy theory.” You’re not discussing, you’re just trolling.

No mention of the letter from Joseph Bast to the Philip Morris rep, in which Heartland lobby efforts for big tobacco are laid out? Your focus appears to be a bit lop-sided.

What’s to mention about that document? Except that you’re misrepresenting what they do as “lobby efforts for big tobacco”. I’ll let Heartland speak for itself on the issue:

Q: Can you reply to specific accusations made by SourceWatch?

A. Yes. SourceWatch is a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, a partisan advocacy group. Heartland is one of scores of free-market think tanks that are unfairly criticized on this site.

The site (last viewed in September 2009) devotes much space to Heartland’s alleged ties to Philip Morris and the tobacco industry. A former board member, Roy Marden, indeed worked for Philip Morris/Altria during some of his time on Heartland’s board, and he helped convince others in the company to approve contributions to us because of our opposition to high taxes on cigarettes, the abuse of tort law leading up to the Master Settlement Agreement, and other tobacco-related issues. This was not a conflict of interest: All nonprofit organizations put representatives of foundations and corporations on their boards with the expectation that they help “give or get” financial support.

Philip Morris’ support never amounted to more than 5 percent of Heartland’s annual budget. None of the correspondence between Marden and his colleagues at Philip Morris suggests any improper influence over Heartland’s programs or positions, and indeed there was none. Heartland was speaking up for over-taxed smokers and against nanny state regulations long before Philip Morris offered any funding and before Marden joined the organization’s board. None of these simple and exculpatory facts are reported by SourceWatch.
…Q. Is Heartland’s position on tobacco control “extremist” or outside the scientific mainstream?

A. No. Heartland’s long-standing position on tobacco is that smoking is a risk factor for many diseases; we have never denied that smoking kills. We argue that the risks are exaggerated by the public health community to justify their calls for more regulations on businesses and higher taxes on smokers, and that the risk of adverse health effects from second-hand smoke is dramatically less than for active smoking, with many studies finding no adverse health effects at all. These positions are supported by many prominent scientists and virtually all free-market think tanks.

We take these principled positions on tobacco control despite their being very politically incorrect and despite receiving little (and in some years no) funding from tobacco companies because they are freedom issues. The left uses junk science to demonize smokers, which then clears the way for higher taxes on smokers, restrictions on their personal freedoms, and restrictions on the property rights of the owners of bars and other businesses. This is why advocates of liberty must address tobacco control issues, even if it means losing financial support from potential donors who are anti-smoking.
…

There it is. Year to year they get little to no tobacco money, yet they maintain their position on the principle of freedom.

Come on, if they really wanted to advocate something that’d really bring in the bucks and were willing to support it with shonky churned-out “science”, they’d be pushing (C)AGW alongside those other advocacy groups.

The document you linked might be it – I thought it was covering material or an overview. Perhaps they changed or got rid of the title. Yes, I’m aware the two web pages have the same material, dipstick.

Whatever the case, the document is a fine example of Heartland’s lobby profile for big tobacco. My point remains that they are not just dealing with passive smoking. Your interpretation of my intent is just as wrong as before, puss-face. You’re a dab hand with a search engine (gee-whiz! have you learned that copy’n’paste trick?), but your comprehension is lousy.

Your defense of Heartland is strange. Why are you even bothering? I see nothing wrong with them lobbying to make things easier for tobacco smokers. It’s also not a problem that they have requested and received funding from tobacco companies based on their lobbying efforts – that is the exact point of Joseph Bast’s letter to Philip Morris, BTW. Could it be any clearer, from the president of Heartland no less?

So, when you read, “I see nothing wrong,” and, “it’s not a problem,” what happens in that strange wee brain of yours that overrides my words and decides I’ve said the complete opposite? Just who do you imagine you are talking to?

You are defending Heartland. I am defending, or attacking, nobody. I was a smoker for 20 years and enjoyed every one. I think you should take up smoking. It might calm you down.

Year to year they get little to no tobacco money, yet they maintain their position on the principle of freedom.

Because they said so? Fine display of skepticism, kadaka.

But again, you are fabricating a disagreement. I’ve repeatedly said that their lobbying and ‘science’ reports are guided by their political philosophy. Whatever position you think you are arguing against, it isn’t mine.